Cynetic Wolf

Street Parade

We arrived downtown thirty minutes later, in time for the start of the action. A crowd gathered on the marble steps of the Justice Building, thousands of individuals of every shape, size and color lining the streets, carrying pitchforks and blasters, audio amplifiers, and even a few old powder rifles.

It was a sight to behold—stripes and scales and fur—animotes of every age and walk of life, here to fight and die for their future. It gave me goosebumps.

Further up the road was a DNS barricade, an unending wall of black-clad soldiers. VTOLs hovered overhead, news crews and air force ships vying for space and to control crowds.

It was way more than I expected. There had to be a few hundred thousand on the streets, twenty to forty percent of the capital. The energy was electrifying, both terrible and awe-inspiring at once.

A voice burst through. “THIS IS THE DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL SECURITY. RETURN TO YOUR HOMES AT ONCE. YOU ARE IN DIRECT VIOLATION OF GOVERNMENTAL DECREE SEVENTY-SEVEN SECTION SIX. BE ADVISED, WE ARE AUTHORIZED TO USE FORCE IF NECESSARY. RETURN TO YOUR HOMES IMMEDIATELY.”

A BOOM shook the streets. Hundreds of amplifiers came to life, voices joining in a crackle. Song erupted. “WE AIN’T GONNA TAKE IT, NO, WE AIN’T GONNA TAKE IT. WE’RE AIN’T GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!”

The music got louder and louder, and my heart shook, deep bass rocking my very core. When it couldn’t get louder, it faded and my voice echoed everywhere. The video from two days ago reverberated through the streets, silencing everyone. People froze. What was happening?

A buzz enveloped the crowd as people stomped their feet, chanting. “Down with the GDR. Down with the GDR. DOWN WITH THE GDR.”

I joined in as the cheers eclipsed even the heart-stopping music earlier, tension building. This was it. The moment was magical. The emotion, overpowering.

BANG.

Someone fired. Shit.

Shots filled the air; tens, hundreds, soon thousands... The police had opened fire.

People scattered, regrouped, and charged the black-clad soldiers and cops. Objects hurtled through the air. Explosions everywhere. The building to our right erupted in flame. Cars and scooters went up in smoke. Around us, screaming animotes collapsed.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

A massive rev stopped my heart. What was that? To the left, a huge military transport barreled toward us; it must have housed a hundred men. No... I opened my mouth to shout when another appeared behind us, boxing us in.

Zedda grabbed my arm, pointing. A third rocketed toward the crowd from the right. They weren’t boxing us in, they were mowing us down like bowling pins. How could they? Dozens were crushed by oncoming vehicles as fear jolted the crowd. It had gone from a fight to a slaughter in seconds. Their VTOLs opened fire, high caliber blasts ripping three meter wide holes in our ranks.

What had I done? Blood everywhere.

Targeting the closest transport, I laid down heavy fire and hit the driver. The truck careened into a wall in an explosion of glass and concrete. Lars and Zedda battled a VTOL to my left as a bearish man with an anti-aircraft gun was blown apart not twenty meters away. That could have been her...

Sprinting toward the onslaught, I fired. My first shots missed as the vehicle bulldozed bodies, picking up steam. The fifth shot got him, but it was too late... speeding for a huge crowd. There’d be hundreds of fatalities.

I hurdled a boy throwing rocks at the oncoming behemoth, and lost it. Not him too, he was just a child. Slamming the rig, a shockwave rippled through me and the truck launched into the air, landing five meters from the screaming boy.

“Go!” I yelled. “Get out of here!” He ran, and made it three steps before he was blown apart by an airborne blast. No! I could have—a soldier fired, but I shot him.

To my left, Henk stood over the wreckage of the last transport, firing like mad. Zedda was right; he was an animal in combat.

Speaking of Zedda, where was she? Was she okay? My heart pounded. What about Lars?

A message from Paer: Two locations down.

What? Oh, yeah, the brain-fields.

An endless supply of soldiers piled into the fray, and from the east, the roar of more VTOLs. We were getting murdered.

Something slammed into me and I spun, ducking as I leveled my blaster. Holy shit, Lars!

“There you are!” he yelled over the chaos. “I almost killed you. We’re getting massacred.”

“I know! Have you seen Zedda?”

“No, but we need to push back one of those columns or we’re all dead—” Something streaked toward us and I tackled him. The ground we’d been standing on exploded in a plume.

“Follow me!” I darted down a side street, away from the action. Could we flank them, like Thorn’s men? We had to.

Lars seized my arm. “Are you running away?”

What? “No.” We passed a zombie-filled VR den, turned, and burst onto the main thoroughfare behind the advancing column.

Switching to automatic, I opened fire. The first line of soldiers whose backs were to us were cut down instantly. We didn’t let up, not even pausing to aim as wave after wave collapsed to the bloody pavement.

In twenty seconds, their column of several thousand had been reduced to a third. As they countered, rebels charged. It was the perfect accidental two-pronged attack.

Within minutes, all lay dead or dying.

A cheer from our supporters, the first moral victory of the one-sided battle. Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to cheer death. They’d chosen sides, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.

Paer called. ‘We got trouble!’